Pamela Wallin ordered to pay back an additional $17,000 as final tab reaches almost $139,000

OTTAWA — A group of senators examining Sen. Pamela Wallin’s travel expenses completed its review on Wednesday, concluding that the Saskatchewan senator must reimburse an additional $17,621.98 in expenses, bringing her total to about $139,000.

The Senate subcommittee’s decision concerns an additional $20,978 in expenses that an independent audit last week had flagged for further study. On Wednesday, about a week after the audit’s release, the three-senator subcommittee determined that Wallin should reimburse all but $3,357 of that money.

The Deloitte audit of Wallin’s travel expenses between January 2009 and September 2012 found more than $121,000 in expense claims that it said needed to be repaid. The Senate’s internal economy committee recommended last week that Wallin be ordered to repay that amount. She had already repaid $38,000, leaving about $83,000 plus interest.

The auditors said a further $20,978 in claims was “subject to interpretation,” as the claims were mostly from “networking events.” Sen. Gerald Comeau, chair of the Senate’s internal economy committee, said last week those items would be reviewed individually.

In a statement Wednesday, the three-senator internal economy steering committee said it has determined that Wallin must reimburse $17,621.98 of that money. That brings her total tab to $138,969, the largest amount among the four senators whose expenses underwent independent audits.

The three-senator steering committee is made up of Comeau, fellow Conservative Sen. Carolyn Stewart Olsen, and Liberal Sen. George Furey.

Wallin has called the audit process “fundamentally flawed” and unfair, saying she was determined to be an “activist senator” who would advance causes important to Canadians when appointed in 2009, and that Deloitte retroactively applied spending rules to previous years that were put in place in 2012. In a statement to reporters last week, she said the audit disallowed expenses originally approved by Senate finance officials based on “some arbitrary and undefined sense of what constitutes Senate business or common Senate practice.”

But she vowed to repay any money the Senate asks her to repay, including interest, out of her own resources.

The full Senate will debate Wallin’s recommended punishment when it reconvenes in the fall. The upper chamber’s internal economy committee also voted last week to refer Wallin’s expenses to the RCMP.

Wallin, appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009, is the fourth senator to have expenses referred to the Mounties.

Senators Patrick Brazeau, Mike Duffy and Mac Harb are already under police investigation. Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy, all former Conservatives, are now sitting as independents, as is Harb, a former Liberal.

In February in the House of Commons, Harper vouched for Wallin’s expenses.

“In terms of Sen. Wallin, I have looked at the numbers,” he said at the time. “Her travel costs are comparable to any parliamentarian travelling from that particular area of the country over that period of time.”

In terms of Sen. Wallin, I have looked at the numbers. Her travel costs are comparable to any parliamentarian travelling from that particular area of the country over that period of time

But Harper’s office has since said that he was referring to the total amount, not defending the appropriateness of individual expenses.

This week in Whitehorse, a stop on his annual tour of northern Canada, the prime minister was asked why he stood in the Commons to defend Wallin’s expenses.

“At the time, I indicated that all of the senator’s individual expenses would be subject to robust scrutiny through an audit that of course has since been done and obviously has uncovered some significant problems,” Harper said.